Has tourism been a culprit in commodifying cultures and traditions?

Tourism is like economics. In order for tourism to be successful, it is to provide supply to meet the demand. What attracts people to travel is the uniqueness of the destination such as the infrastructures, arts, culture, traditions, events, landscapes, festivals and many more.

In order to flourish in the tourism sector, we must know what are the needs and wants of the demand and from there; we could then market our supply to them. One way to capture the tourism market is to promote the culture of the destination because each destination will have their unique selling point. For developing countries, their pristine culture and traditions are what foreigners are curious about and would want to explore and know more about it. This could actually be seen as an opportunity to bring economic benefits to the community and hence, begin to package their culture and “sell” it to the tourist. In return, this will result in commoditisation of cultures and traditions of the community. Commoditisation generally refers to treating something in a way that it should not suppose to be treated. Commoditization not only happens it developing countries, more developed countries also might face it because when tourist gets bored with a particular country’s culture or tradition, the host community might change their culture and tradition to adapt the demands of the tourists. The local culture and traditions will then be lost due to the adaptation for tourist demand and a new culture might emerge which may not be authentic because they are staged for the tourist, and not what they originally used to be.

With reference to the context of South Korea, tourism receipts had increased due to the recent Korean pop wave (k-pop). Dramas had been filmed in different areas of Korea especially in Seoul, for example the drama, Jewel in the Palace, a few years back in the Hwaseong Fortress. Now, a theme park based on the drama had been built with the purpose of promoting Korean culture worldwide through food, medical science, costumes and traditional games. However to me, I feel that the government is exploiting the uprising Korean culture to bring in more revenue in the tourism sector. The interior and exterior of the actual palace was reconstructed in order to let the visitors feel realistic when visiting the site. This defeats the authenticity of the palace because firstly the visit is already unauthentic. What tourist is visiting is just a commoditised theme park induced with the “so called” cultures and traditions of Korea from the popular drama. The culture and tradition of a destination should not be packaged in order to satisfy the demand of the tourist and this is where tourism will result in commoditisation of the culture and traditions, and hence the culprit of it.

By using another case of Lotte world, the Folk museum is one of the major areas where commoditisation takes place. The miniature village was staged up for the tourist to help them understand the past living in Korea. But it was too commercialised as a Korean culture, hence, the authentic culture and traditions were lost .The Jeojagori is also an area how Korean culture was packaged for the tourist. Different food specialities around South Korea should not be concentrated and presented as a product to the visitors. All the cultures of Korea are cramped up into a small area for visitors to experience them, which make their visit a staged or fake experience.

In conclusion, tourism is part of the culprit in commodifying cultures and traditions. However, the local communities must also take pride and dignity in preserving their own culture and heritage. They must not cause exploitation by misusing them with regards to the meaning and purpose of their traditions and cultures.